“I’m going to go check,” Mrs. Weber said.
Riley pushed herself off the floor. “I’ll do it, Mom.” She started pulling on her clothes.
“I’ll go, too,” Martina offered, grabbing her jeans off a nearby chair.
Mrs. Weber looked unsure at first. She glanced down at her long nightgown, then nodded. “Okay. I’ll go change and join you in a few minutes.”
The two girls quickly finished dressing and pulled on their winter gear. Since the sun had yet to rise, they flipped on the outside lights before leaving.
At some point during the night, the storm had moved on. What it left behind was over a foot of snow that covered the ground as far as they could see.
Riley was about to step off the porch when Martina grabbed her arm. “Don’t.”
“What?”
“Look,” Martina said, pointing at the ground in front of the porch. “No footprints.”
The snow surrounding the entrance was a flat, white surface. It would have been impossible for Laurie to go this way without leaving a mark.
“See, she must be inside somewhere,” Riley said.
“Or,” Martina said, “she could have used the back door.”
“Um, maybe,” Riley grudgingly admitted.
Since they were outside already, they started to walk around the house, but as they neared the Webers’ car, Martina noticed something. There were several small depressions in the snow close to the driver’s door. Footprints from the night before, she thought, the snow having almost filled them in.
She angled over for a better look. Even though they had been partially filled, it was strange that the depressions were still smaller than her own prints. So it wasn’t one of their dads she’d heard last night?
“What are you doing?” Riley said from the corner of the house. “Come on.”
Martina looked up and nodded. Before she said what she was starting to think, it would be best to check the back of the house. If Laurie’s prints were there, everything would be fine.
But everything wasn’t fine.
“See, I told you,” Riley said. “She’s inside.”
The snow outside the backdoor was as flat as it was out front.
“Come on,” Riley said, reaching for the door.
“Did you hear someone go out last night after we went to bed?” Martina asked.
Riley paused, then shook her head. “No.”
“I did. I thought it was either your dad or mine. Whoever it was went out to the car and turned on the radio, but I fell asleep so I didn’t hear anyone come back.”
Riley’s eyes widened. “Do you think it was Laurie?”
“I don’t know. That was around midnight.”
They stared at each other for a moment. Riley then grabbed the knob and tried to open the door. It was locked, so she had to pound on it until her mother answered.
Mrs. Weber pulled the door open a few seconds later, her coat half on. “Did you find her?”
Riley rushed past her. “Dad!” she yelled. “Dad!”
Martina came in right behind her.
“What is it?” Mrs. Weber called after them.
But the girls ignored her as they headed for the bedrooms. When Martina opened the door to her parents’ room, they looked up, obviously having been woken by Riley’s yelling.
“Is something wrong?” her mom asked.
“Dad, did you go out to the Webers’ car last night?” Martina asked.
“Why would I do that?”
“To listen to the radio.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Your mother and I went to bed the same time you did.”
Martina whipped around and looked over at Riley, who was staring back at her from the doorway to her parents’ room.
“He didn’t go out,” Martina said.
“Neither did my dad,” Riley said.
They walked in an ever-widening circle around the cabin, but there were no footprints or other signs of Laurie anywhere. It was like she had just vanished.
After a while, it was decided someone should take one of the cars and check along the road. Mr. Weber wanted to do that, but Martina’s dad used the argument that his car was the only one with chains. Martina suspected it was more than that. Mr. Weber was starting to show signs of panic, and letting him operate a car would have been a mistake.
Martina sat up front with her father, while Donny had the backseat to himself.
Keeping their speed slow, her dad headed down the snow-covered road. Martina watched to the right, while her brother scanned the area to the left.
They were getting close to the main paved road when Donny said, “What’s that?”
Their father took his foot off the gas and let the car roll to a stop.
There was a slight rise that started about twenty feet from the road on the driver’s side. Donny was pointing at something toward the top — a flash of color peeking out from behind a tree. Lavender, like the color of Laurie’s jacket.
Without waiting for the others, Martina threw open her door and ran around the car.
“Martina, hold on!” her father called out.
She ignored him and headed up the side of the ridge. When she reached the tree, she found Laurie there, sitting with her back to the trunk. The girl’s face had lost most of its color, and her lips were ashen gray.
“Laurie?” Martina said, shaking the girl’s shoulder.
For a second there was no response, then Laurie’s chin moved up a fraction of an inch. Her eyelids parted just enough so she could peer at Martina.
“Dad!” Martina called down the hill. “Dad, she’s here!” She looked back at Laurie. “It’s okay. We’ve found you. We’ll take you back and warm you up.”
“Home,” Laurie whispered. “I want to go home.”
Martina’s Dad blared the horn as they approached the cabin and pulled to a stop. Her mom and Mrs. Weber rushed outside as Martina and her father jumped out of the car.
“We found her,” Martina said, and helped her dad ease Laurie out of the backseat.
“Oh, my God,” Mrs. Weber said “Oh, my God!”
While they carried the girl to the house, Mr. Weber, Riley, and Pamela ran out of the woods from where they’d been searching.
“Laurie?” Riley said.
“Someone open the door,” Martina’s father ordered.
Martina’s mom ran around them and pushed the door out of the way. They took Laurie into the Webers’ bedroom, where Mrs. Weber and Martina’s mom stripped off her cold, wet clothes and covered her with blankets. Mrs. Weber asked everyone to leave the bedroom and let Laurie rest.
No one would admit it, but they had all thought they’d never see Laurie alive again. Instead, they just talked about how happy they were that they’d found her, and how they were sure she would be all right.
At one point, Martina heard a muffled cough from the Webers’ bedroom. She assumed it was Laurie, her system reacting to her ordeal.
She was wrong on both counts.
35
The conference room at NB219 had undergone a major overhaul in the last twelve hours. No longer was there a single monitor that needed to be split into sections when several people were on a video call. Now there were six monitors, all mounted to the wall, each capable of receiving a different feed.
The furniture had also been replaced with pieces Perez thought were more fitting for the new principal director’s temporary headquarters — an impressive black metal table and a dozen padded leather chairs, the largest of which he was sitting in at that very moment.
Four of the screens were active, each displaying the image of a different person looking out at him. Of the former leadership committee, only Dr. Lassiter was present. On the other three screens were Renée Girard, Richard Chang, and Dr. Ronald Fisher.